We would like to host a 3p qualifying tournament for US Nationals on Isotropic. It must conclude by next week, or at the latest, sometime in the first week of July because US Nationals will be in Chicago in mid-July. The winner receives lodging and airfare to Nationals.

We want to solicit your ideas on how to organize this tournament. Time is obviously not on our side. How can we handle signups, matchups, and no-shows in a fair and equitable manner?

First, you want to make sure everyone who enters can actually use the prize. With work schedules, and needing to get time off, you've got to get the tournament done soon enough that people who will need some notice for this will be able to get the time off. It would also be extremely helpful to know just when in mid-July the nationals are.

3p... well, you've got some logistical issues here. All the players are US, which will help anyway. But I think general consensus would be that you need more games, not fewer, to have really fair outcomes for 3p. Well, maybe there's not enough time for this, but more games is still going to be better than fewer.

Specifying particular matchups might actually be a huge problem here, as it's really going to put a hamper on how quickly you can do things. If you specify matchups, you get... one? Two? Sets of matches that you can reasonably expect? Very few, anyway.OTOH, if you do a more open format, you have issues with fairness there, making sure everybody can get the same number of games in, etc. etc. Which is hard.I'm not sure I see a great solution here, but it might help to know roughly how many people are going to be competing here. It's a lot different trying to cull out from 9 to 1, than it is from 100 down to 1.

You may need to do some heavy-duty single days. Which sucks for people unavailable those days, but them's the breaks, with so little time.

No-shows are probably just out. No hard feelings, but we don't really have time for something else.

(1) Coordinating play times for 3-P is tough. Especially in a limited timeline. This suggests you set some times and people either play or they don't (like a real in-person tournament)

(2) Time zones are tough. Setting up a 1-day tourney that works in Europe is tough for the west coast of the US (and almost impossible for Asia). This suggests you may want a 'first round' split into two time brackets

(3) Single elimination is really random in 3P. Being the third player could take you out right off the start. This suggests you want multiple plays before any elimination (and in each elimination round)

From that, and given the time limitations, here's a suggestion:

(1) Two prelim rounds: One starts Sat morning GMT. The other starts Sat Morning PST(2) Top 6 players in each prelim play again on Sunday(3) For prelims set up multiple rounds where points determine moving to the next round. You can eliminate any number of people each round to make it work(4) For the finals the next day, have the 6-players play twice in each spot. Most points win.

One more thought:I played in a Magic tournament years and years ago with the following format:- Find any opponent you haven't played yet and play a game- When you finish a game, find a new opponent- You get 1 point for a loss and 2 points for a win

Maybe not right here, but it encouraged people to go out and play a lot (and play fast) over the course of the day (In Magic is led to the smart people building really fast decks, but that's obviously not possible with Dominion).

It could be that you just do the first round that way as a clearing mechanism. 2 points for a win, 1 for 2nd place. Go play as many games as you can with new people for 3-5 hours. The top players move on to a second, more structured round? Top three in the structured round move to the finals the next day.

Lots wrong with this, but feel free to use it as a starting point for something you could get going fast...

After hearing that Swedish nationals wouldn't receive sponsorship to fly to Gencon, I'm feeling extra super jealous to have a chance to qualify (to anything) online Hopefully next year there will be something similar open to non-americans, it would be cool.

3p... well, you've got some logistical issues here. All the players are US, which will help anyway. But I think general consensus would be that you need more games, not fewer, to have really fair outcomes for 3p. Well, maybe there's not enough time for this, but more games is still going to be better than fewer.

The winner probably won't be the best player. If we wanted the best American player, I'd happily take the top player from the iso leaderboard.

I don't think we should shoot for maximizing the chance of selecting the best player. I think we should try to make it fun, get one of you lucky forum members a chance to get to the US nationals, and making it actually happen.

3p... well, you've got some logistical issues here. All the players are US, which will help anyway. But I think general consensus would be that you need more games, not fewer, to have really fair outcomes for 3p. Well, maybe there's not enough time for this, but more games is still going to be better than fewer.

The winner probably won't be the best player. If we wanted the best American player, I'd happily take the top player from the iso leaderboard.

I don't think we should shoot for maximizing the chance of selecting the best player. I think we should try to make it fun, get one of you lucky forum members a chance to get to the US nationals, and making it actually happen.

Give it to whoever gets the most upvotes in the meme thread?

I wouldn't expect the strongest player to win even a well-run highly-competition-centric tournament a huge percentage of the time. (Not to mention the fact that such a small percentage of the iso leaderboard is based on 3p games...)

I just really don't understand the point of a tournament where rewarding stronger play is unimportant.

I just really don't understand the point of a tournament where rewarding stronger play is unimportant.

I'm going to agree with this sentiment with the reservation that it certainly gives me a much higher probability of actually sneaking in there.

I think what rrenaud means is that if you define "best player" to be "the player on top after an infinitely large sample of games", then with such a small sample it is unlikely that the final player on top will be the same as if you had an infinite sample.

I just really don't understand the point of a tournament where rewarding stronger play is unimportant.

I'm going to agree with this sentiment with the reservation that it certainly gives me a much higher probability of actually sneaking in there.

I think what rrenaud means is that if you define "best player" to be "the player on top after an infinitely large sample of games", then with such a small sample it is unlikely that the final player on top will be the same as if you had an infinite sample.

Well sure - this is going to be true with any finite number of games, to some extent anyway. This doesn't mean you can't try to do the best you can, though.

I'll agree with Frisk, his idea seems like a great idea. I would agree that three 3-player games easily finish within an hour. Barring 3 consecutive slogfest style games, 30-45 minutes is a reasonable amount of time. I like this style and think it would work in the quick nature and also provide an opportunity for good play to shine. Although a 12-game final isn't perfect, it certainly rewards better play much more so than every other qualifier tournament.

I'll agree with Frisk, his idea seems like a great idea. I would agree that three 3-player games easily finish within an hour. Barring 3 consecutive slogfest style games, 30-45 minutes is a reasonable amount of time. I like this style and think it would work in the quick nature and also provide an opportunity for good play to shine. Although a 12-game final isn't perfect, it certainly rewards better play much more so than every other qualifier tournament.

If you drop to 7 qualifiers, you can get down to a 9 game final where eveyone plays everyone else (although I'm not sure if you can get the same symmetry around not having the same pairings more than once.)

I don't really see it as a final so much as a 2nd day. At the end of the day, you're talking about 24 games of dominion. I'm sure most of the people who are serious about playing have played that many on a work day, let alone over a weekend.

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I support funsockets.... taking as much time as they need to get it right.

I just really don't understand the point of a tournament where rewarding stronger play is unimportant.

I'm going to agree with this sentiment with the reservation that it certainly gives me a much higher probability of actually sneaking in there.

I think what rrenaud means is that if you define "best player" to be "the player on top after an infinitely large sample of games", then with such a small sample it is unlikely that the final player on top will be the same as if you had an infinite sample.

Well sure - this is going to be true with any finite number of games, to some extent anyway. This doesn't mean you can't try to do the best you can, though.

Of course we will try, but I think rrenaud is just saying that it should not be the sole priority.

- 3p games are going to be harder to organize and will take linger to play. i would stick with 2p for as long as possible. if jay insists on 3p, make the finals and semis 3p but leave the knockouts as 2p.- as WW said, make sure participants can actually make the US finals. competitors should be flexible, but within reason. the winner shouldn't just be a decent player with the most free time. split by weekday or day/night availability whenever possible.- you might have to restrict it to f.ds regulars. it is a f.ds qualifier, so i think it is fair that f.ds members get first chance. of course, i have a bias here, but so will everyone inputting their opinion. maybe give preference similar to how the beta signup worked?- 2 2p knockout rounds, a 3p semi, and a 3p final makes 36 players. if you whittle down the forum members to those in the US, having flexible schedules, and actually able to make the final that might be doable.

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momomoto: ...I looked at the tableau and went "Mountebank? That's for jerks."rrenaud: Jerks win.

I don't think 2p is an option. Further, since it's 3p later, I think it really really ought to be 3p from the beginning. 2 to 3 is a different beast, and it doesn't make sense to me to mix them. You wouldn't have people compete in soccer for the intro rounds before switching to a rugby tournament, even if you like soccer better.July 13th-14th are the dates for the US champs, in case anyone is wondering.

I still think as many rounds of play as possible checks most of the boxes we want - more games, which means more fun, and less randomness/more skill. The issue is how many can we deal with given people's schedules and the short time frame we're looking at.

Also, I think there's a bit of an overestimation of how long these games take. I'd guess 20-30 min on average.

I don't think 2p is an option. Further, since it's 3p later, I think it really really ought to be 3p from the beginning. 2 to 3 is a different beast, and it doesn't make sense to me to mix them. You wouldn't have people compete in soccer for the intro rounds before switching to a rugby tournament, even if you like soccer better.

well obviously mixing formats is not the preferred option dude. come on now. but we don't have the time to make a nice 243 player tournament spread out over two months. there needs to be concessions somewhere, and 2p saves time and is easier to arrange matchups.

i actually think you are underestimating game lenghts. 3p is longer than 2p, and all tournament sets have always taken longer than a few games casual on isotropic would. combining this leads to long games, and you just can't do that when trying to fit the schedule of 3p. it seems ridiculous to me that the tournament would be so heavily dependent on who has the most free time to play.

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momomoto: ...I looked at the tableau and went "Mountebank? That's for jerks."rrenaud: Jerks win.

I think that one of the first things to do is make an official sign-up. Set a final date that people must sign up by and hold them to it. Once we have an idea of how many people we are talking about, things become a lot easier. It could be that for a time-intensive tournament, only 30 people are interested. Hell, look at Swiss Isodom; there aren't that many on there and it is much more flexible in scheduling games and has a number of international competitors.

i actually think you are underestimating game lenghts. 3p is longer than 2p, and all tournament sets have always taken longer than a few games casual on isotropic would. combining this leads to long games, and you just can't do that when trying to fit the schedule of 3p. it seems ridiculous to me that the tournament would be so heavily dependent on who has the most free time to play.

Every other qualifier is dependent on where people live, that is a much bigger restriction than the "3-player games are harder to schedule" restriction. Keep in mind that nothing has been decided yet. I'm sure that a format can be arranged that will do 2 things.

1.) Preserve the format to closely match the irl multiplayer set up.2.) Allow many people to play somewhat independent of time ****obviously available time will be somewhat of a factor as it is in any tournament*****

I'm very optimistic that this tournament will cater to both of these aspects. In fact, I would hope that this tourney would be more readily available to more people than compared to other regionals which require people to give pretty much an entire saturday.